A Study Of Listening Strategies Training Among Non-English Major College Students

Listening is an active mental process, in which a listener tries to understand the listening materials with the help of listening strategies and kinds of knowledge. In theory, knowledge of language(pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary and grammar) and background(cultural differences and different subjects)is an important factor to influence student's listening performance. The more knowledge of language and background he has, the better he can accomplish the listening task.Students' listening ability depends much on their knowledge of language and background. However, a medium is needed in order to turn students' knowledge into listening ability. Listening strategies, i.e. metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies, can help them to achieve the purpose. Metacognitve strategies refer to strategies of advance preparation, directed attention, selective attention, self-management, self-monitoring and self-evaluation. Cognitive strategies mainly include strategies of inferencing, translation, elaboration, transfer, note-taking, contextualisation and keyword-using. Social/affective strategies refer to strategies of cooperation and self-talk.This thesis endeavors to analyze the relationship between the listening strategies and listening performances of students by means of questionnaires. The results of research on how much knowledge the students acquire and on what listening strategies they often use show that listening strategies, especially the strategies of directed attention, selective attention, self-management, self-evaluation, elaboration, transfer, note-taking, contextualisation, keyword-using and self-talk, often play a major role in students' achievements of listening comprehension.